Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Most Recent Additions to my TBR List

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. Each week there is a new topic for bloggers to choose and list their top ten. This week’s theme is Top Ten Most Recent Additions to my TBR List.

I recently did an overhaul of my Goodreads ‘to-read’ list and I got rid of all the books I was no longer interested in reading, but ended up adding even more (some of which I was surprised weren’t already on there, because I’ve been saying I want to read them for ages). The ten I picked for this week’s list aren’t necessarily the ten most recent books I added to my TBR list, but the ten most recent books I discovered and added (for me there is a difference).

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Comic Books Will Break Your Heart by Faith Erin Hicks

As much as I love retellings I’ve never really been a fan of Romeo and Juliet ones. However Comic Books Will Break Your Heart sounds like a cute, fun story, and yes there are some mixed reviews but I’m willing to see for myself what I think.

I normally go on a YA contemporary reading binge in the summer, and I think this book will be the perfect addition.

A sweet, funny contemporary teen romance for the inner geek in all of us from graphic novelist Faith Erin Hicks.

Miriam’s family should be rich. After all, her grandfather was the co-creator of smash-hit comics series The TomorrowMen. But he sold his rights to the series to his co-creator in the 1960s for practically nothing, and now that’s what Miriam has: practically nothing. And practically nothing to look forward to either―how can she afford college when her family can barely keep a roof above their heads? As if she didn’t have enough to worry about, Miriam’s life gets much more complicated when a cute boy shows up in town…and turns out to be the grandson of the man who defrauded Miriam’s grandfather, and heir to the TomorrowMen fortune.

In her endearing debut novel, cartoonist Faith Erin Hicks pens a sensitive and funny Romeo and Juliet tale about modern romance, geek royalty, and what it takes to heal the long-festering scars of the past (Spoiler Alert: love).

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Sawkill Girls by Claire Legrand

I read and enjoyed Claire Legrand’s Furyborn, and although Sawkill Girls could not sound more different the blurb references Victoria Schwab (whose work I love) and Stranger Things (which I’ve heard amazing things about), and so far all the reviews I’ve seen have been positive. I have an audiobook edition waiting for me, so hopefully I’ll be able to start this one soon.

Fans of Victoria Schwab, Nova Ren Suma, and Netflix’s hit show Stranger Things will crave this frightening stand-alone contemporary teen horror novel about three girls who take on an insidious monster that preys upon young women.

Who are the Sawkill Girls?

Marion: The newbie. Awkward and plain, steady and dependable. Weighed down by tragedy and hungry for love she’s sure she’ll never find.

Zoey: The pariah. Luckless and lonely, hurting but hiding it. Aching with grief and dreaming of vanished girls. Maybe she’s broken―or maybe everyone else is.

Val: The queen bee. Gorgeous and privileged, ruthless and regal. Words like silk and eyes like knives; a heart made of secrets and a mouth full of lies.

Their stories come together on the island of Sawkill Rock, where gleaming horses graze in rolling pastures and cold waves crash against black cliffs. Where kids whisper the legend of an insidious monster at parties and around campfires. Where girls have been disappearing for decades, stolen away by a ravenous evil no one has dared to fight…until now.

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Last of Her Name by Jessica Khoury

I still have The Forbidden Wish sitting on my TBR list, but why not add another of Jessica Khoury’s books as well. Hopefully based on what people have said about The Forbidden Wish, Last of Her Name will be incredible. It’s inspired by the story of Anastasia Romanov so already I can’t wait.

Sixteen years ago, rebellion swept the galaxy known as the Belt of Jewels. Every member of the royal family was murdered – down to their youngest child, Princess Anya – and the Union government rose in its place. But Stacia doesn’t think much about politics. She spends her days half-wild, rambling her father’s vineyard with her closest friends, Clio and Pol.

That all changes the day a Union ship appears in town, carrying the leader of the Belt himself, the Direktor Eminent. The Direktor claims that Princess Anya is alive, and that Stacia’s sleepy village is a den of empire loyalists, intent on hiding her. When Stacia is identified as the lost princess, her provincial home explodes into a nightmare.

Pol smuggles her away to a hidden escape ship in the chaos, leaving Clio in the hands of the Union. With everything she knows threading away into stars, Stacia sets her heart on a single mission. She will find and rescue Clio, even with the whole galaxy on her trail.

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When the Sky Fell on Splendor by Emily Henry

Emily Henry is one of my favourite magical realism authors, her debut was one of the first magical realism book I picked up, so how I didn’t know she had another book coming out this year I had no idea. Now I’ve not only added When the Sky Fell on Splendor to my TBR list, but pre-ordered the hardcover edition as well.

The Serpent King meets Stranger Things in Emily Henry’s gripping novel about a group of friends in a small town who find themselves dealing with unexpected powers after a cosmic event.

Almost everyone in the small town of Splendor, Ohio, was affected when the local steel mill exploded. If you weren’t a casualty of the accident yourself, chances are a loved one was. That’s the case for seventeen-year-old Franny, who, five years after the explosion, still has to stand by and do nothing as her brother lies in a coma.

In the wake of the tragedy, Franny found solace in a group of friends whose experiences mirrored her own. The group calls themselves The Ordinary, and they spend their free time investigating local ghost stories and legends, filming their exploits for their small following of YouTube fans. It’s silly, it’s fun, and it keeps them from dwelling on the sadness that surrounds them.

Until one evening, when the strange and dangerous thing they film isn’t fiction―it’s a bright light, something massive hurdling toward them from the sky. And when it crashes and the teens go to investigate…everything changes.

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Bloom by Kevin Panetta and Savanna Ganucheau

When I read Marie’s review for Bloom I wasn’t expecting to immediately want to add it to my TBR list (I’m not really a massive reader of graphic novels). However after hearing about the slow-burning friend to lovers relationship and strong family dynamics (not to mention the fact that the story is set in a bakery) I knew I needed to read Bloom myself.

Now that high school is over, Ari is dying to move to the big city with his ultra-hip band—if he can just persuade his dad to let him quit his job at their struggling family bakery. Though he loved working there as a kid, Ari cannot fathom a life wasting away over rising dough and hot ovens. But while interviewing candidates for his replacement, Ari meets Hector, an easygoing guy who loves baking as much as Ari wants to escape it. As they become closer over batches of bread, love is ready to bloom…that is, if Ari doesn’t ruin everything.

Writer Kevin Panetta and artist Savanna Ganucheau concoct a delicious recipe of intricately illustrated baking scenes and blushing young love, in which the choices we make can have terrible consequences, but the people who love us can help us grow.

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Emmy & Oliver by Robin Benway

The review Sophie wrote that put this book on my radar was a mixed one, but the pros she talks about (especially the dynamic between the main characters; Emmy, Oliver, Drew and Caro) more than outweighed the cons in my mind and convinced me to add this book to my TBR list.

Plus the blurb references Sarah Dessen, who along with Morgan Matson is my favourite YA contemporary author.

Emmy’s best friend, Oliver, reappears after being kidnapped by his father ten years ago. Emmy hopes to pick up their relationship right where it left off. Are they destined to be together? Or has fate irreparably driven them apart?

Emmy just wants to be in charge of her own life.

She wants to stay out late, surf her favourite beach—go anywhere without her parents’ relentless worrying. But Emmy’s parents can’t seem to let her grow up—not since the day Oliver disappeared.

Oliver needs a moment to figure out his heart.

He’d thought, all these years, that his dad was the good guy. He never knew that it was his father who kidnapped him and kept him on the run. Discovering it, and finding himself returned to his old hometown, all at once, has his heart racing and his thoughts swirling.

Emmy and Oliver were going to be best friends forever, or maybe even more, before their futures were ripped apart. In Emmy’s soul, despite the space and time between them, their connection has never been severed. But is their story still written in the stars? Or are their hearts like the pieces of two different puzzles—impossible to fit together?

Readers who love Sarah Dessen will tear through these pages with hearts in throats as Emmy and Oliver struggle to face the messy, confusing consequences of Oliver’s father’s crime. Full of romance, coming-of-age emotion, and heartache, these two equally compelling characters create an unforgettable story.

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First & Then by Emma Mills

It seems like everyone is talking about Emma Mills. So many of the bloggers I follow have either already read and loved her books, or have them on their TBR list and can’t wait to get started. I’m one of the latter bloggers; all of Emma Mill’s books are now on my TBR list, but hopefully I’ll soon be one of the ‘read and loved’ bloggers.

Devon Tennyson wouldn’t change a thing. She’s happy watching Friday night games from the bleachers, silently crushing on best friend Cas, and blissfully ignoring the future after high school. But the universe has other plans. It delivers Devon’s cousin Foster, an unrepentant social outlier with a surprising talent for football, and the obnoxiously superior and maddeningly attractive star running back, Ezra, right where she doesn’t want them first into her P.E. class and then into every other aspect of her life.

Pride and Prejudice meets Friday Night Lights in this contemporary novel about falling in love with the unexpected boy, with a new brother, and with yourself.

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The Beautiful by Renée Ahdieh

I honestly cannot remember the last time I read a book that features vampires; they seem to have died out in the YA fantasy genre after the Twilight craze that swept my teenage years. I suppose it’s past time they were brought back, and who better to bring them back than Renée Ahdieh.

New York Times bestselling author Renée Ahdieh returns with a sumptuous, sultry and romantic new series set in 19th century New Orleans where vampires hide in plain sight.

In 1872, New Orleans is a city ruled by the dead. But to seventeen-year-old Celine Rousseau, New Orleans provides her a refuge after she’s forced to flee her life as a dressmaker in Paris. Taken in by the sisters of the Ursuline convent along with six other girls, Celine quickly becomes enamoured with the vibrant city from the music to the food to the soirées and – especially – to the danger. She soon becomes embroiled in the city’s glitzy underworld, known as Le Cour des Lions, after catching the eye of the group’s leader, the enigmatic Sèbastien Saint Germain. When the body of one of the girls from the convent is found in the lair of Le Cour des Lions, Celine battles her attraction to him and suspicions about Sèbastien’s guilt along with the shame of her own horrible secret.

When more bodies are discovered, each crime more gruesome than the last, Celine and New Orleans become gripped by the terror of a serial killer on the loose—one Celine is sure has set her in his sights…and who may even be the young man who has stolen her heart. As the murders continue to go unsolved, Celine takes matters into her own hands and soon uncovers something even more shocking: an age-old feud from the darkest creatures of the underworld reveals a truth about Celine she always suspected simmered just beneath the surface.

At once a sultry romance and a thrilling murder mystery, master storyteller Renée Ahdieh embarks on her most potent fantasy series yet: The Beautiful.

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The Fever King by Victoria Lee

There is a lot of hype for this book (I’ll admit at first it seemed to pass me by) but then Malanie recommended it to me, told me I had to read it, and so I added it to my TBR list. Malanie is the person who convinced me to pick up Darius the Great is Not Okay and The Foxhole Court, two of my favourite reads of 2018, so I have high hopes for The Fever King.

In the former United States, sixteen-year-old Noam Álvaro wakes up in a hospital bed, the sole survivor of the viral magic that killed his family and made him a technopath. His ability to control technology attracts the attention of the minister of defence and thrusts him into the magical elite of the nation of Carolinia.

The son of undocumented immigrants, Noam has spent his life fighting for the rights of refugees fleeing magical outbreaks—refugees Carolinia routinely deports with vicious efficiency. Sensing a way to make change, Noam accepts the minister’s offer to teach him the science behind his magic, secretly planning to use it against the government. But then he meets the minister’s son – cruel, dangerous, and achingly beautiful – and the way forward becomes less clear.

Caught between his purpose and his heart, Noam must decide who he can trust and how far he’s willing to go in pursuit of the greater good.

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Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston

Another cute YA contemporary I’m saving for my summer YA contemporary binge read. Red, White & Royal Blue sounds like a lot of fun, plus it has an enemies to lovers relationship which I cannot get enough of, and so far it has a lot of positive reviews. I can’t wait.

A big-hearted romantic comedy in which the First Son falls in love with the Prince of Wales after an incident of international proportions forces them to pretend to be best friends…

First Son Alex Claremont-Diaz is the closest thing to a prince this side of the Atlantic. With his intrepid sister and the Veep’s genius granddaughter, they’re the White House Trio, a beautiful millennial marketing strategy for his mother, President Ellen Claremont. International socialite duties do have downsides—namely, when photos of a confrontation with his longtime nemesis Prince Henry at a royal wedding leak to the tabloids and threaten American/British relations.

The plan for damage control: staging a fake friendship between the First Son and the Prince. Alex is busy enough handling his mother’s bloodthirsty opponents and his own political ambitions without an uptight royal slowing him down. But beneath Henry’s Prince Charming veneer, there’s a soft-hearted eccentric with a dry sense of humour and more than one ghost haunting him.

As President Claremont kicks off her reelection bid, Alex finds himself hurtling into a secret relationship with Henry that could derail the campaign and upend two nations. And Henry throws everything into question for Alex, an impulsive, charming guy who thought he knew everything: What is worth the sacrifice? How do you do all the good you can do? And, most importantly, how will history remember you?

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So what do you think? Did you take part in this week’s Top Ten Tuesday, if so let me know what book you most recently added to your TBR list? Do you have any of these books on your TBR list as well, or have you read any of them already?